About Me - Growing PIGs!

The most important advice I ever received was

Only Take Advice From People Who Are In Positions You Want To Be In.
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This advice is excellent. If you visit this blog, you should be interested in who the authors are writing the content?

I am writing my content. I am NOT farming my PIG stories out. This blog is about me, what I’ve done, what I learned, and what I can share.

Now, this part is covered; the next thing is to learn is about me, the blog’s author.

Let me try to summarize who I am and then cover how I got here and where I am going.

My name is Tom. A middle-aged man who is trying to raise two great kids as a widowed parent.

My Financial Past.

I am a welfare-kid. Although many of us were welfare-kids, you still hid this fact growing up in the inner city.

Even being a welfare-kid like many others, I was considered the lowest. My mother was divorced(many times), which was uncommon in the ’70s. Also, because she disliked being an adult, even less being a parent, I found myself in the care of state-run foster homes or with family, friends, and relatives.

My Mom had issues, often blaming her shortcomings for becoming a mother too early in life. Something she could never change and look past, so she suffered her whole life with her self-created limitations and chemical dependencies. She’s at peace now.

I, too, had a miss guided focus as a child. I figured we were the low of the low because of lack of money. So at an early age, I tried to supplement our income by side hustles. As a child, I garbage picked and sold items I found.

One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure.
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I did tasks as a youth, which I don’t plan to detail here, but understand I was getting tours of prisons as a child by concerned social workers and school counselors.

I left my neighborhood at age 18, fueled by a lack of opportunities(one of the biggest hang-ups locally, I never really became bi-lingual, English was a second language where I lived) and a sense of patriotism I joined the military. Entered a very high-demand field, the first two years of the six-year enlistment are dedicated to schools. In my teens, counselors labeled me as ‘functionally illiterate,’ but I was a survivor, unlike my more intelligent brothers in arms. I passed all the schools and exited the military with honors.

In my young twenties, I managed to do only with money that was typical of my age. Spend everything, and save almost nothing. My financial planning was nothing more than saving money to spend for the following weekend.

Early 1992, some mutual funds made great returns and made me interested in investing. For those old enough, remember Twentieth Century’s Ultra Mutual fund? 😀

I left the military in 1993 and found myself married to the most beautiful woman in the world. Having a job that had a 401k and wanting to provide a future for my growing family, I started investing. I kept it simple; my investment plan was to pick a mutual fund and keep adding my pennies to it. I used advice from Warren Buffet and focused on SP500 for diversification.

Buy Index Funds
Warren Buffet

I didn’t know it when I had a retirement plan, and it was working for me, Dollar-Cost-Averaging.

I tried trading individual stocks and options back in the dot-com error but was uncomfortable with the risk, and my reward results didn’t warrant it. So I gave it up.

Lost My Life’s Muse:

At the start of 2015, my family had two full-time incomes and benefits.

My Wifey and I flexed our jobs to work and raise kids without daycare or babysitters. At the end of 2015, investing in retirement was no longer a concern, but we were not fighting for our lives(figuratively and literally). I lost the full-time income of my Wife (she was battling terminal cancer, out of the blue) and relied on credit cards as our ’emergency fund.’

We financially struggled for a few years, and I picked up additional side jobs. She became so sick; I had to drop my part-time jobs to focus on her and our family, with an outcome I wasn’t prepared for.

I lost my inspiration, my voice of reason, my Wife. She was hardworking, providing for her family. She made inspired me to become better at everything I did and to soldier on.

Without her, I had to drop from full-time(my employer wouldn’t budge on my schedule to help with my family’s needs, the reason they didn’t have enough staff to do so, so I cut my hours) and went Per Diem.

I had to buy health insurance for our family, still had some debt to address, a reduced income, and worse yet, a damaged spirit.

More recent history: the “lock-down times.”

I watched my dollar-cost-average-based sp500 index come crashing down. I made some life changes and found myself redefining the point of investing and what my goals were. My goal was to grow a retirement fund to the point of pulling out the pre-verbal 4%, which will cover this later, till my last day.

My Job Screwed Me:

The response in the “virus-times” baffled me. We had a health crisis, and 40+ million Americans were forced to lose their incomes and health insurance. My hospital decided to cut preventative services and doctor office visits, including downsizing the Emergency Room staffing.

I am an emergency room nurse who worked during one of the most modern public health crises. My hours were cut, and at times, I was sent home.

Was I laid off? Not legally, I was working Per Diem, but my hours were cut so bad I wasn’t making much of an income at all. I am a certified critical care emergency nurse, and I was without a consistent income because of my management decisions. Like many Americans, my weekly income was at the mercy of my bosses.

Fast Forward To My Financial Position Now:

I finally left my insensitive employer and found a better-paying nursing job with cheaper healthcare insurance for my kids and myself. With an employer that pays so well, I have cut my hours as much as possible to be a Dad to my kids.

My kids have become my focus, and now I want to continue providing for them and leaving them filled with life lessons and memories.

I have created a few small and growing Passive Income Generators (PIGs), including changing my retirement funds such that with a flip of a switch(at retirement), they stop reinvesting returns and send me monthly checks home to me.

My Financial Life Is Getting “Better.”

My current financial boss, must keep her filled with cat treats.

Not without a bunch of mistakes along the way. After all the experiences, I am no longer only focusing my investments on retirement but financial independence. PIGs (Passive Income Generators) are the way I plan to get there, and like a good farmer, I have many PIGs all growing, getting fatter each day.

I want to help others. I want everyone willing to learn, learn from my mistakes and successes. I want to learn alongside others interested in obtaining financial independence.

We all have different definitions of financial independence, with different paths and plans. As I share my experiences, please leave comments about yours.

Thank you!

Tom

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Tom, Growing His Passive Income Generators.